Darlings, I’ve swallowed
too many platitudes from you all.

If positivity was a drug,
I’d be River Phoenix by now.

They’d have investigated you,
tossed a book of Gibran at your smile.

If so, would you remember me today
as fondly as we do him? Or

would you have blocked me out,
thinking me stupid

for dying from sugar poisoning?
Would you ask yourself

how it could be that a man died
from an overdose of light?

If you were me,
you’d understand.

I was born to be the praise
for what crawls from under the rock.

I was born to be sullen art.
I was made for contrast.

Know I didn’t choose this.
I’d have rather been sunlit,

blind from the glare of day.
I do appreciate your cheer.

But sometimes your words
are doubled by a voice

saying, “Not that.  Not that.”
Neglected darkness speaking?

I don’t know. I just know
how I am when it sounds off:

I’m most comfortable
with that in my ear.

Call me a downspout
for psychic rain.

Call me a slipped noose
or a damaged launch. Not that —

I am the brother of those.
The diary of a charm

against what we won’t name.
Keep your affirmations —

I can’t learn that tongue;
the one I know, I know too cold.

A short vacation,
hiatus, rest break,
sabbatical

until the day after 
everything
blows over.  Will be

back after a few words
from our sponsor

who expected us
to work harder
and longer
for his dollar.  

He doesn’t seem pleased
or inclined to re-up
the contract as

it seems everything went to Hell
while we were sitting back
and enjoying the inattention
to detail.

No idea
what we’ll be doing now
that the gig’s fallen through; 

sit very still
watching the dark horizon,
I suspect,
at least until night
closes in. 

rocking like a sand bar
in current, particles flowing off
with every wave, there goes
what I loved, here comes
what I’ll love now, shape
shifting, now crescent, now
straight line, now blockage
to tides, now broken barrier,
perhaps husks will wash up
and bulk me up, perhaps
I’ll be an island, perhaps
a continent

or maybe I’ll
wash away, get into
the seabed, become a beach, 
grit in someone’s shoes, dragged
or carried inland, washed off
in a cold shower, down a drain, 
end up at rest far from home,

a memory of past nautical history,
found in a crime scene, mystery of
forensics, evidence of change,
cryptozoological marker,
here was a mermaid passing
at some point, a kraken, a dead sailor,
pirate gold, something, anything to spark
an imagination,

the mundane nature
of what I’d been lost, no record 
of what loves I’d lost and gained, 
my mere physical trace all that remains
and that much of me made to tell a story
I’m not a part of,

as the ocean
takes me in without making me a part,
as the drain carries me away
without calling me to itself to stay.

All along the walls of watchtowers
that keep inner sanctum sacred
the hymns of longing
rise, supplicating for bread
and access.  With a raised eyebrow,
those inside intone spells
and make ritual gestures —

delicacy,
the tool of the upperclass
when there’s a need
to put someone back
in place;

etiquette,
a menu for delicacy,
a ghostly menace
behind it. Dig deep and see
how door holding and fork placement
condescend to some, set tiger traps
for others.

Fashion,
a uniform for separatism;
accent, a marker for acceptance or rejection;
grammar, a two-edged sword
guarding the gates of Paradise;

all so beautiful that soon enough
we aspire to our own prisons,
to acquire
our own sets of keys,
our shackles,
our marching orders.

Are we not handsome now
with our hybrid vigor
draped in such vicious elegance?

Once upon a time
I stole a tooth
from the skull of a virgin saint.
When planted, the tooth
bloomed a library.
I read deeply for months.

The virgin’s story,
captured on parchment,
reeked of flowers and sand.
A soldier met her, thought to take her,
then thought again; those words
were scented with iron and spikenard.

When I put down those books
I understood the nature of restraint,
but the distance between understanding
and practicing is wide.  So I returned to the relics,
stole another tooth, and swallowed it.

No secret worth keeping exists 
without a little pain.  No knowledge
blooms to being unless fed by blood.
That tooth bit deep.  It filled me 
not only with my own blood —
but I must hold my tongue about what it gave me
as I tasted sand, ground its grit 
between my own once-ignorant teeth.

I sit now in an impotent library.
Every book read, every page turned —
I’m no better a man than I was before the thefts
and the plantings, though at least I know now
how short I’ve fallen. How deeply I am flawed
when I compare myself to that soldier
who turned from the virgin, took nothing from her
though he had the chance,
and lived happily ever after. 

man o man
we are getting to the point
of needing to know how
a throat is slit —  

the piglet is struggling and we know
it’s got to be strung up by
its hind legs and
the blood’s got to be drained

but 
we also know
you’re not the kind of guy
to do that
and as the host
you could save face

by delegating the
honor or the chore to a trusted friend

and we’re all drunk
and hoping and fearing
that you’ll choose us

but never mind — you say you’ll do it

and when it’s time
we envy you
your chance at sanctioned mayhem
and your willingness to do it
your not-quite eagerness to do it

so when you are ready
we gather
and watch your face
not your hands

and man o man
it’s
something to see 

Woke up thrashing,
throat on full choke,
hands throwing war shapes.
I ask the night,

if breathing were simpler
who would I be?  If nights
were easier and uninterrupted
who would I be?

Comes a voice:

Don’t blame
the blocked back of your throat
or the subsequent storm
in your enzymes

for the look on the front of your head:
that’s no mask.
There’s no other hiding
inside your illnesses.  By all the signs,

you’re a bastard.  
By your age
almost everyone who’s left
is.  All this sound and rage

is real, is impotent,
is yours.  Own it
and stop moaning for your other self:
there’s no one to be comforted there,

and you know it.  
You’re a complete bastard.
Embrace it, hold it tenderly to your
lard-gray chest — and if you are going to be up,

fold some clothes,
do some dishes, because
that warrior-sickbed persona of yours
won’t get the house clean.

wearing spare glasses —
slight adjustment to my sight
gives me a headache

wearing old glasses —
slight revision to my sight
gives me nostalgia

wearing bad glasses —
violets are up — even
the blind know it’s spring

blurry but happy
is how the world seems right now —
clarity can wait

This lie of ours
that holds us fast
is remarkable enough
to be admired on its own merits
even if it is a lie.  It’s
architectural, foundational;
it made a home for us inside.
It is grand and cozy as we need it to be
and even when we don’t believe,
it nags us into acting as if we do,
just in case.  Perhaps it was true once
and now it’s not?  In that case,
let’s give it its due and move on.
Let’s just say that Hell is dead,
and move out of its shadow
into the fields, away from
the crumbling walls.  Out there,
in the sunlight and the cool rain,
we can live publicly and openly,
thinking anew of sin and redemption —

and when the time is right,
we can talk then of the death
of Heaven, too.

All these people
seem more concerned
about others than I am.

I’m frantically searching my head
for a bump in the right place
that will explain this; some scar
on a crucial spot might be keeping me
from loving my fellow humans.  It all seems
so smooth up there, like I’ve never lived
and been hurt by anything or anyone.

I think I’ll take it out on someone.
Maybe they’ll hit me in the head
and break the numbness wide open.

Maybe they’ll forgive me
and I’ll feel the dam of concern
bursting within me.  

Maybe I’ll just tumble
and fall, get up cursing humanity.
Honestly, that seems the most likely outcome,
and frankly preferable to how I am now.
I’ve got to have a hole in my head
to feel so little.

M is for mescaline, for peace
of mind.

O is for opiates on my
hip, just for kicks.

D is for drink, drink
all over my lap and belly.

S is for smoke
the color of eyes.

L is for my life’s
that’s wrecked. Got no job,
no true home,
family’s a cipher,
love’s a horizon.

G is for the gold rush,
the hope of easy street, the fine wares
of gangster and greedyguts,
for groaning
under the weight of pretending
that I expect something to go well.

C is for cleaning up
the stains that are always on the floor
no matter how C for careful I am.

A is for absolution, absinthe,
how amazing the way I am when left
to my own devices.

Z is the place I end up
when I lose the thread. The last place
I remember to look. The place
as distant from a beginning as I can find.

If you enjoy cutting others

If you learned that early
and found you had a knack for it

If you get a kicky gut-gasm when you feel
soft pillow puncture or shock of bonestrike up your arm

If you love the weapons and own them by the dozens
carry them in pairs in boots in pockets and small of back

If you know how to use them
not from movie or video but from hard training

If your family taught you manhood
depended on hard skills like these

but if even beyond that you learned
that for you it was a pleasure and not grim need

and you ran from that 
and became a good boy and never hurt anyone

except that one time —
maybe two if you are being ruthless

and honestly
all you’ve cut since then has been yourself

and even then only a few times
and those were a while ago

if you are settled and urbane
and only taste the desire to cut now and then

and never do it with your knives
at all

tell me
are you still a monster